EWU names next president

Eastern Washington University has chosen Mary Cullinan, president of Southern Oregon University, to be the school’s next president. She will begin Aug. 1.

Cullinan has been president of SOU, in Ashland, since 2006. At the Oregon university, she led an effort to create a strategic vision that focused on access and success for all students.

Before coming to SOU, she worked as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Stephen F. Austin University in Texas from 2003 to 2006. She has also worked at universities in the California State University system. She earned her bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and her masters and Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

She is replacing Rodolfo Arevalo, who announced his retirement earlier this year. She’s not the first woman to serve in the top position at EWU — Beatrice Felder served as acting president in 1989 — but she will be school’s first full-time woman president.

Her salary is expected to be set by the Board of Trustees later this week.

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